Taking Inventory: Atlanta Braves

Entering today’s action, the Braves sat in a tie for the second spot in the National League East. Had they been asked before the season, the organization would’ve been thrilled to learn that fate. But the sheen is decidedly lessened by the context: Atlanta still sits six games under .500 and is more than ten games out of a postseason spot of any kind.

Despite the placement in the standings, then, the Braves are highly likely to be in a position to sell at the trade deadline. That doesn’t mean, though, that the club will be terribly willing to consider dealing its more controllable players. It doesn’t even necessarily mean that certain veterans will be sold off for a reasonable return. And it’s still possible that Atlanta will at least look into dealing away some prospects to acquire an established starter with long-term control. With the organization determined to embark upon real contention in 2018, and to leave a good impression on fans even as the excitement of a new ballpark begins to wear off, a major tear-down isn’t likely.

Let’s take a look at some of the possible trade assets on the MLB roster:

Garcia looks to be the class of the Atlanta rental crop. He’s through 82 2/3 innings with a 3.59 ERA, so he has been both healthy and effective. While the southpaw is producing less strikeouts (6.5 per nine) and more walks (3.4 per nine), he’s running a 56.5% groundball mate that’s an exact match for his career mark. It’s unlikely Garcia will be viewed as a mid-3.00 pitcher at the deadline, and he’s likely due for a bit of regression before that point, but he ought to hold real appeal.

Colon’s pinpoint command just hasn’t been there in his age-44 season. He’s working at nearly double the average walk rate he carried over the prior five seasons and has been in the zone just 43.5% of the time (against a 52.4% career average). That is perhaps showing up in other ways, too, as Colon hasn’t allowed this frequency of long balls since he was pitching for the Angels. There’s likely also some poor fortune baked in the hefty .353 BABIP opposing hitters are carrying against Colon, as well as his meager 48.5% strand rate, but at this point he has minimal trade value after 59 innings of 7.78 ERA ball.

Phillips carries an attractive .306/.351/.431 batting line, but that’ll drift back as his .342 BABIP faded. Since he’s no longer an elite defender, Phillips just doesn’t profile as a first-division regular. That said, he’s cheap and comes with plenty of experience, so it’s easy to imagine interest — though it’s anybody’s guess whether he’d be happy playing in a bench role.

The veteran receiver has been dealt twice at the deadline before (and probably should have been a third time). He’s swinging a pretty good stick for a catcher — .227/.342/.402 through 118 plate appearances — and could fill a gap for an organization that ends up thin at the position.

As his 35th birthday approaches, Motte owns a seemingly resurgent 1.86 ERA. But even a quick glance behind the results shows that it’s likely a mirage. He is averaging less than six strikeouts per nine with 3.7 BB/9 while benefiting from a very low BABIP (.192) and 100% strand rate. It’s still imaginable another club will like how he’s throwing the ball, but the offers may not be significant enough to make it worth it for the Braves to make a move.

Atlanta could have a somewhat difficult decision to make on Johnson, who is pitching quite well but might also help solidify the back of the bullpen next year. He’s generating a 9.7% swinging-strike rate — best of his career — to complement his typically excellent groundball induction efforts (56.0% groundball rate, currently). Johnson profiles as a setup man on a contending team, which could have a fair bit of value.

The veteran keeps on posting roughly league average offensive seasons, so you generally know what you’re going to get. Currently, he’s getting on base at a nice clip (.371) but showing a total lack of power (.092 isolated slugging). Unless the Braves are willing to pay down quite a bit of money, it’s hard to see rival organizations getting too excited at that profile from an older corner outfielder.

Dickey is outperforming Colon, but that’s about where the plaudits end. He owns a 5.35 ERA through 77 1/3 innings, with his strikeout and walk rates each heading in the wrong direction. Dickey’s 7.6% swinging-strike rate is the lowest he has carried since his Cy Young campaign. All said, it’s hard to see where the interest would come from, and the Braves might hold in case a second-half turnaround makes the option appealing.

After a strong offensive season in 2016, Flowers has opened the current year with a blistering .333/.435/.473 slash. There are lots of reasons to think that won’t last, but the 31-year-old doesn’t need to hit at that pace to be a significant offensive threat for a catcher. He’ll likely draw some interest, but Atlanta needs a catcher for 2018 and seems likely to hold.

The 28-year-old has thrived since finding a second chance in Atlanta, though his overall profile as a hitter hasn’t changed much. It’s not clear there’ll be a ton of demand, though it’s also not clear what the Braves will do with Adams once Freddie Freeman returns.

Plenty of sub-.500 teams have interesting calls to make on controllable veterans, but it’s not clear that holds true for Atlanta. Freeman is hurt and wouldn’t be dealt anyway. (Neither will Ender Inciarte and Dansby Swanson.) Teheran is back on the downturn after a strong 2016 and is needed for the future anyway with multiple rotation spots unaccounted for past this season. Though Kemp is mashing, he has had some injury troubles and still looks like a defensive liability; plus, the Braves don’t have replacements lined up and surely like the idea of carrying him as a middle-of-the-order star heading into 2018.

And then there’s Vizcaino, who may be the most likely of this group to be traded at the deadline. He’s throwing well again, with a 1.93 ERA and 10.6 K/9 against 2.9 BB/9 through 28 frames, and the Braves control him for only two more years. There’s surely no need for Atlanta to push the flamethrower out the door, but it may be worth cashing in on a somewhat volatile asset if there’s a good enough offer on the table.

Comments

I think you gotta trade Garcia, Suzuki, Colon, and Phillips with all of them about to become free agents. Anything is better than nothing especially in the case of Colon who might be done after this season.

It would be awesome to keep Adams on the Braves, but no way he takes a minor league assignment to play outfield. I believe he was pretty disgruntled while playing in LF in St. Louis, so not super likely that’ll happen. If they do keep him, I’m sure he’ll log some innings in the OF to spell Kemp, but it’d be a waste of his talent to sit on the bench for the most part.

He never played an inning at a position other than first base in the minors. That’s a pretty strong indication that the Cardinals never saw that as a reasonable possibility. Making that sort of change now, especially in the middle of the season, would be rather unprecedented.

It’s not just about trading Kemp at a peak value. His contract is still large enough that many teams would balk given his limited defensive ability at this point. We might get an AL contender to bite, but pretty much every contender already has 2-3 limited fielding/DH types on their roster. Put those factors together and a trade is highly unlikely.

Jeff I think way you undervalue what Adams, Flowers, Garcia,Kemp, Phillips, and Markakis could bring back. Each of these guys have been put really good numbers so far. Matt Kemp for example he is batting around 320, Matt Adams since coming to the Braves via the trade he has hit 10 homers in 35 games. Jame Garcia took away his previous start he has been pitching light out with very little run support. Tyler Flowers he is hitting around 330. Even Nick Markakis is hitting around 300, The Braves should be able to get back a top 50 prospect for some of these guys. And maybe even a prospect in the 15-20 range.

Correct, Jeff. I’ve heard soo many Braves fans clamoring about selling off some of these veterans that are having pretty solid seasons at the plate. They mainly want them traded, because they seem to think the Braves can get pretty good returns for most of these guys. (Garcia, Kemp, Flowers, Adams, Suzuki, Vizzy, Johnson, Phillips, Jose Ramirez, etc.)

While, yes each of those guys are having very good seasons, none of those players would really help enough to change the future outcomes of a playoff contender.

Teams are only going to give up their best, young assets, if they think they are getting a player or two back that will truly enhance their chances at competing for a title. Unfortunately, none of those players previously mentioned can offer that to a team.

Now maybe Ramirez, Flowers, or Vizcaino would fetch a fairly good return, BUT who is to say the Braves really want to even get rid of those players…All three, especially Flowers, would be fairly key components, if the Braves are hoping to somewhat contend next season. And, by all accounts, that’s what the Braves GM and F.O. is aiming for, to field a steady and competitive team by the 2018 season…

So, all in all, I completely agree with you, especially since I haven’t even mentioned the negatives attributed with each of those players. Several Braves fans solely want to focus on the positives and basic Stat lines for those guys, while they completely disregard the underlying and sometimes obvious negatives or reasons behind why the Braves will not receive any worthwhile packages for their “available veterans.”

None of these players have particularly strong track records though so it’s unlikely teams are buying into these players finally figuring it out. None of them are particularly young either so it’s hard to believe they are finally coming into their own.

Here’s why we like that, we use to have BJ upton in the outfield. A guy who makes contact and gives us a chance seems like a god at this point. Markakis is a solid ball player. On our roster, he’s really good… which is another reason why we like him.

The best thing about Markakis is his consistency. You know almost exactly what you are going to get from him game in, game out and year in, year out. His OBP is consistently above average, his slugging below average. He doesn’t have tons of range but he catches what he gets to and doesn’t throw the ball away. Markakis is more of a stoic lead by example type than a rah rah cheerleader, but he doesn’t make waves and destroy the chemistry of the team either. Markakis can be counted on to play almost every day no matter who is pitching (not many do that anymore). So basically while Markakis doesn’t bring tons of excitement, he doesn’t cause detriment to the team either. Many see value in that. Even if you don’t see the value, the Braves do under their current circumstances (but to be honest I see few other teams where Markakis might be a net positive for right now).

I think we need to keep Adams and Flowers, Kemp I would trade because we could use better use of the 18 million we are paying him and as I have already stated his value is as high it’s going to be. It is according what we get back for Nick, he is nothing great but he is good in the clubhouse and you know what you are getting from him. Garcia is as good as gone so there is no debating that. I don’t like any of our third basemen except Camargo but I wonder what Phillips would think of the prospect.

The three main chips likely to be moved are Garcia, Phillips, and Adams. And like mentioned above I think u are selling these guys short. Adams also has an extra year of control. The Braves top target should be a young corner outfielder in any talks

I mean, Adams has had a very good month. He’s a pretty good hitter. But every team in baseball had a chance to get him for next to nothing before he went to Atlanta, and there’s nothing I’m aware of to suggest he has made any fundamental changes that would suggest we need to completely reevaluate him as a hitter. Plus, there are other 1B/DH-only slugger types that could be available. If he’s still raking a month from now and there’s a reason to believe it’ll last, then perhaps my views will change, but at this point I am not bullish on his trade value.

Depending upon how he’s throwing and who else is available, Garcia could conceivably bring an interesting return. And Johnson might have some solid value, I suppose. Otherwise, I’m not seeing much in terms of deadline assets, honestly.

The change happened this offseason. He never got a chance to prove it on the Cardinals other than him trying to survive in LF for a week. The 1B market is always watered down but you arent watching if you dont think he has value. The Cardinals will be the first ones to tell you they undersold Adams. The fact the Cards made a bad deal is not relevant to his deadline value

Oh, I’m watching. He’s on my squad in the MLBTR fantasy league! (That’s a reflection of Sun Trust Park and his outfield eligibility, as much as his recent productivity.)

The relevance of the prior trade is simply that every team already had a chance to get him for peanuts, and passed. That’s a reflection of collective assessment of a player, in some part. There are other factors at play there beyond just talent assessment, but some of those (notably, demand) could also tamp down interest at the deadline.

So, the question is: has anything changed that would modify teams’ assessments? I don’t believe it has, at least not yet. He still has a .240 OBP against lefties, right at his career mark, for example. One month of productivity, standing alone, isn’t enough to completely change a player’s value — especially when that player is a 29-year-old first baseman who has an established baseline in the majors.

I never said Adams won’t have any value, or that further output won’t move the assessment. I’m just being realistic about what it is likely to be given the information we have.

All it takes is one team! What I think the Braves will try to do is package Adams and another player to try and get a good prospect. I think we can all agree that whatever value Adams had when the Cards traded him the Braves are going to be able to easily get more if they choose to flip him again. Not saying that it will be a top prospect but it will be better than what they gave up

I’m wondering if the Cubs would get desperate enough at some point (and I know they’re not now) to offer Victor Caratini in exchange for Jaime Garcia. He isn’t one of their top tier prospects by any means but looks to be a solid bat first back up catcher/corner infielder type prospect (and he was originally a Braves prospect too).

Candelario would be nice, but I just don’t see the Cubs using him for someone like Garcia. I’d think it would be more likely the Cubs would seek to use Candelario as part of a package to acquire an elite arm if they go that route.

If Alonso doesn’t extend with OAK, it would be interesting to see Alonso dealt with Healy shifting to 1B and Gray traded to CHC for a package that would include Candelario. No chance of that happening, but I can’t fathom OAK continuing to run Healy out at 3B unless they have to.

I agree that he’d take more than Garcia, but I do think we could swing it with maybe a mid tier arm as opposed to an upper one. Hopefully Coppy can work his magic on that and entice them with a little Garcia B prospect B- prospect

We can’t forget how Freeman came alive when Kemp came to town last year. So the idea of moving Kemp is ok if we think that Adams could play left field and protect him in the lineup. It’s not like Kemp is good defensively anyway. With Phillips, I want to keep him through the year because he’s been a great defensive pairing with Swanson. And Swanson staying confident defensively while he finds himself at the plate this season is important. And he and Phillips seem to have chemistry.

Matt has already gone on record as stating that the Cardinals put him in lf and he really hadn’t had a lot of time out there. If I’m the Braves I would have a talk with him and see if he would like to work and make an outfielder. Face it Kemp will not lead us to the playoffs, Matt could

I, personally, would love to keep Adams as a back-up 1B’men, as a rare, spot starter in LF, and obviously as the Braves DH in inter-league games at AL parks, and as their first bat off the bench later in games.

It’s unfortunate, however, that once Freeman comes back, Adams will most likely be a goner either earlier at the deadline or during the off-season.

Adams ever since the trade he has been the Braves MVP. Ones Freeman return as long Adams will keep putting the numbers that he is putting right now the Braves might be able to get a couple of top 50 prospect with one and of two of them being in the 10-15 range maybe a bit higher than that. Let not forgot that last year Braves traded away 2 washed up pitchers to the Rangers for the 14th overall prospect. Let not forget that last year the Braves trade away Bud Light Norris to the Dodgers for the 0 and 30 prospect if I am not mistaken. If the Braves can get 2 top 30 prospects, or the 14th overall prospect from the Rangers what is it to stop the Braves from doing better than last year as far as trade goes. I might not saying That Matt Adams,Jane Garcia,Brandon Phillips, among other Braves players who might be move before the deadline will net the Braves a top 10 prospect. Having said that we must all remember that it one team to desperate enough to win now that they will offer a really good prospect. We must not disregard John Coppy and John Magic ability to get the Braves over the face value return whenever they make a trade.

If Adams can play a serviceable Left (with some off-season work) maybe Coppy could try to move Markakis for something halfway decent (even a project) and stick either Kemp or Adams in Right? Having 3 30+ homer bats in the lineup for 2018 would be sick. The defense would be kinda scary… But Ender could help a bit.

chesteraarthur, you troll. Braves fans understand just how bad we are. This should reflect just how good awful the mets are. With that talent, there is no way they shouldn’t be completing for best team in the NL. but they are worthless

If those SPs get their BBs down, and all the other the Braves maintain their performance, its not too late for the Braves to make a run. If the Braves sell, I would believe it would be Jim Johnson and Jason Motte. They are both 35 and performing as good as they ever have and could help a contending team. I would think the Braves want to keep Julio Tehran and Jaimie Garcia. With all the other teams that would be in sell mode, the Braves position players aren’t going anywhere with the slight exception of Matt Adams. Even then, why would the Braves trade him for a nominal player who may never pan out?

You’re exactly right, in my opinion. I can see Dickey and/or Colon being moved. I’d prefer to keep Garcia and possibly sign him for next year if they don’t make a splash signing or you don’t strike gold and have one of the young guys in AAA go crazy and cement his place. Otherwise you have the same problem as last year with unproven kids going 4-5 innings. Folty is already up and down.

As for position players, I don’t see anything substantial coming for Adams, Marky, or Kemp. Phillips has limited value. Suzuki even less. Flowers I think is locked in.

Of all these players Matt Adams is the one I’d hate to see go. However he’s a man without a position once Freeman comes back and the 1st player teams will be asking about at the deadline. No reason i don’t see why he can’t man LF instead of Kemp but Adams will get more in return. Just bad luck for us, we don’t have many positions on lock down but 1st base is one…

Yes please, find a place to send Tehran, maybe Siberia along with Colon. Get something for Garcia and Suzuki since they will be free agents. I like Phillips a lot, but he’s expensive to resign unless he offers a huge hometown discount and he is not getting any younger. Keep Kemp and Adams. Freeman is trying to transition to third and I bet he pulls it off, so hang on to Adams and the Braves will pack a lot of punch.